“it took us a while to get going however… we started to work quite fast”

“we had to have a couple of goes… but in the end it was a decent video”

“I love working with media and computers”

“it was quite fun”

“everyone loved it”

“quality of work, we had fun, we worked hard”

“we were using skills we had been learning in the past term”

“freedom to write any story we wanted”

“it was a challenge”

“we had to do 5 takes to get the first part but after that…”

“the extended lesson and the amount of work”

“able to research stories and create a report for our own story”

“researching education in developing countries… I learned a lot”

“given a timetable for the allocated times for the different tasks we needed to fulfull”

“able to use filming skills like zooming, fading and animation”

“good language and structured writing”

“spoke clearly and eye contact was good”

“we produced a good video”

“using the technology”

“the technology worked well”

“taking part in a big event and partnering with the BBC”

“share it online”

“we got to publish our headlines”

“we got badges and pens”

Even better if:

“we had more time to edit our video”

“we could have gone over everything to check the stories and videos before they were published”

“could have edited the whole thing a bit more”

“I knew more about the technology”

“I got to do some of the videoing”

“more cameras”

“more people involved”

“we had access to another room (for filming)”

“more than one teacher involved”

“we did the report perfectly, our video had no mistakes”

“small errors were corrected”

“we could do it again”

“we had short breaks”

“we just got on with it at the start”

“editor kept everyone on task”

“more support from the editor of our group”

“other people in the group helped more”

“I got to pick my own group”

“we had a fall-0ut which prevented us from progressing… I would love to do it again”

“we had a practice version of the story”

“we spent more time on the main article instead of messing around with small bits too much”

“we kept to our own jobs a bit more”

“more time to really develop our stories”

“we had all day”

“I did more research”

“it was all great”

“I enjoyed every little bit of that day”

“Yesterday was definately eventful. We had some struggles – like the equipment playing up. But, at the end of the day we pulled through with the product and managed to produce a decent report as well as a structured video. WWW – we worked together as a group, everybody stuck to their roles and carried on with their work, despite minor arguments. I managed to control the group along with help from them and sometimes my group had to help me. EBI – It took us multiple takes and probably longer than it should of. The computer was also preventing our download. The upload site and Youtube weren’t accepting our format that we saved our video in. So using some technological trickery we managed to avoid losing our work and not being able to upload it.” Adam P.

“WWW – I think it was a brilliant day. The story we did was great and the filming, acting and research was so much fun. We worked well in groups, creating work and it was ‘non-copy writed enjoyment’ – even running around the school as reporters. EBI – We could have more time, all work in a big group and have more cameras. I would also have liked to have another classroom to use as a studio like we were actually presenters.” Lewis C

“WWW – finding the information for our stories and chosing between what was opinion and fact and when writing we chose only things from a trusted source. This utilised the skills we had been learning in past term showing our strengths and weaknesses in this subject. One of the main skills we used was speaking and listening – the different interactions between the different members of the team, the researcher telling the writer the info they needed for the story and the writer showing his work to people in multimedia who would pick out the main info and compress it into a script short enough for our video without losing any key info. After this we could view what we had created and share it online. EBI – even though we had been prepared for it, it would have been better if we chose the story we were going to do from the beginning instead of changing it when it came to the big day. If we also had a practice version of it we could see what the problems with our stories could be so we could work on it” Francis

Thursday, March 21 had been highlighted in our diaries for several weeks. We were all nervous as it was our first time participating in the national BBC School Report project and no one knew what to expect.

Good ole Aunty Beeb had provided lots of resources and advice on how to manage the day which kicked off with a review of the legal and moral obligations of journalism. The boys were directed into groups where they chose their roles for the day; they needed an editor, a researcher, an online story writer, a video script writer and a multimedia editor to put the moving image broadcast together. They were given a schedule for the morning and from that point on, they were on their own.

Acting purely as facilitator, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and maturity with which they took up the mantle. All the boys demonstrated how independently they can manage themselves. In their groups they selected from the day’s newspapers and online news, which stories they would cover before discussing various possible points of view for each story. Persuasive pitches were made by the editors, where the point of view of one or two stories had to be revised to take into account legal and moral issues. The editors then returned to brief their teams. In the meantime, the teams had been engaging in some independent learning sessions, developing skills for their individual roles, using the BBC video tutorials.

Collaboration, curation and conversation within and between groups created an exciting buzz as students communicated with and learned from each other. Articles and scripts were written and videos were created. Students proof-read each other’s work, critical observations were politely made and well received and final edits were willingly undertaken. The culmination of all this wonderful activity can be seen at www.willypnewsdesk.wordpress.com

What a fantastic experience. Gee, some days (no… not all days), I just feel so privileged to work with these boys and to them, I would like to say THANK YOU!

William Parker Sports College has recently had its Track saved by funding from East Sussex County Council.

The London 2012 Olympic Games Legacy was a once in a lifetime experience that has inspired kids to participate in sports, so funding schools like William Parker that have these facilities is crucial. This school was fortunate that its track was saved by some funding from East Sussex County Council and others. A total of £120,000 was raised to save the track and add and improve facilities. These changes would give the track a brighter future, or at least the next 10 -15 years. The hope is that this development will also bring in money so the next time things need updating then the job will be much easier.

The track caretaker, Mr Evans, told us what happened in the process of saving the track: ‘To get enough money to save the track took a lot of effort and help from organizations such the county council, the school governors and the Hastings Association. However, we were always confident that we would get the funding we needed to keep hold of an extremely important facility for the local area. With the money we will be able to bring in features such as toilets, new changing rooms and the resurfacing of the track.’

The future, then, seems good for the people who use this iconic facility, not just to train but also to keep fit. For the people who live in Hastings this is a vital victory as they continue to use the only full size running track for miles around. Who knows, the next big Olympic star could be training on this very track.

As the media persist on making stories to entertain, is it fair that the words of celebrities are misrepresented for the entertainment of the public?
Most celebrities have the attention of the media for a short period of time. The most recent incident was between Rowan Atkinson and a close member of his family; after Rowan’s 6 minute money raising act for Comic Relief (where he was acting as the Archbishop of Canterbury), a family member stated that the act was ‘appalling’ and the language was ‘crude and pathetic’. Now, Rowan is being criticised by the press.
However, some celebrity’s lives have been hounded by the media for most of their lives; Princess Diana is one of the celebrities whose lives have been severely affected. All of her life, her privacy was being invaded, everywhere she went the media would have been there, trying to catch a glimpse of her and flood her with questions about her private life. Is Kate Middleton next?
Lance Armstrong’s life was massively affected by the media; he took drugs to enhance his performance in cycling and the media released the stories about the drugs he took, which caused him to retire while there was a US federal investigation into doping allegations. However was he pressured into taking the drugs, to keep up to the standards that the media set for him?

Is fast food killing children’s childhoods? Well a recent survey shows that 19% of boys and 22% of girls in the UK will turn obese by the age of 15 and not to mention the thousands of fast food outlets just minutes away from our houses.

Fast food restaurants have been around for the past 100 years, but only recently have we discovered it has been dramatically effecting children’s lives because there is not only too many fast food restaurants around the UK but so many gadgets and consoles that stop children from exercising, which is why so many children are obese. Being obese as a child stops you from doing a lot of things, for example it destroys self-esteem, stops exercise and prevents them from having a healthy and active life style.

However fast food restaurants always the ones to blame but a lot of the time it’s the parents and guardians of the modern day child, this is because fast food restaurants are generally for treats and not to be eaten regularly. So who’s to blame when a child is taken to eat fast food five times a week? The parents! Modern children have been born into a society full of fast food, game consoles and television and these things can be unavoidable at times, but can these take all the blame. Or is some of it the adults fault?

Obesity in the UK is becoming a national epidemic the number of overweight people in the UK has reached maximum high. Now every 1 in 11 deaths is caused by excess fat 50% higher than France.

We interviewed Luke a William Parker student he said “Obesity is down to the parents allowing their kids to fall victim to modern society” another student said “Fast food is to blame there is too much of it and too little of the good food” With billions of junk food sold every year no wonder children in this day and age are obese. Obesity causes millions of deaths, so when will we start taking action against it, for more information go tohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/obesity